"By intention a complex and ambivalent impression. On one side there is the impression of an ultra large media screen, which is not yet fully there. It appears to be still deep frozen under a surface of ice, cracking and thawing. A herald of a fundamental change of architecture, which is about to transform from a static to a dynamic art."
---Realities:United
Filmed in March 2009, the video documents the first configuration and testing of the dynamic media facade of Iluma, the latest shopping mall in the Bugis area, designed by WOHA with the facade lighting created in collaboration with Realities:United. The animated lighting sequence, choreographed by Autokolor, as seen in the video (with music) is admittedly seductive, but at best a muted exclaimation when seen in real life. The snow flake-like tessellating geometric forms of the florurescent lighting fixtures that seemingly promises Christmas all year round are somewhat intriguing in detail if not bewildering, but ultimately gratuitous. Designed to inflict maximum visual punch with its formidable size and scalelessness, it is a spectacle masquerading as art. The media wall at Iluma is one which is a medium for nothing but itself, a statement of self indulgence and flamboyance without the contents to boot.
Architecturally, Iluma is a chop suey of Miralles curves in plaster, frute versions of HdeM's dimpled perforated panels ala De Young Museum, glued onto a Sauerbruch Hutton red barcode box. The tropical modernist roots of WOHA, though, can still be found in the oh-so familiar L-bar metal details and resort-like landscaping; some of the metal door details and sleek black steel wall panels inside are undeniably beautiful. Such quiet refinement is perhaps inconseqential to many people, who are (willingly) mesmerized by the mardi gras of ornamentation. Together with Wilkie Edge (just 2 blocks away), this two WOHA designed malls join the list of recent malls like Central and Orchard Central that are architecturally outlandish and overembellished. These new malls all brandish a misguided view (on the part of both the authorities and developers) that urban vibrancy can be achieved through the creation of the image of urban vitality without making much effort in the cultivation of the actual urban content, what I like to call neon urbanism. With their lastest mall projects, WOHA has definitely shown us that they have pretty much fallen off their neo-tropical-modernist edge, plunging into a baroque orgy of self indulgent pattern making and surface play.
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